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Claire Palmer
Professor Richard
Composition II
30 March 2016
Genetically Modified Children
What if you were capable of making the perfect child? A child that could succeed at
anything athletically to intellectually, one that was not only beautiful on the inside, but also drop
dead gorgeous on the outside, someone that was even free from imperfections or malfunctions in
their genome that can develop through hereditary. Genetics over time has developed a
breakthrough that can create this perfect child; however, it creates promises and predicaments for
society. The promises hold truth to stopping genetic diseases from exceeding past the barrier of
heredity and giving children a chance at life without set backs that they cant control, such as
Cystic Fibrosis, Down Syndrome, or Huntington Disease. Though predicaments can develop
when people take advantage of genetics by giving their child enhancements that will make them
better than well off. By doing this they are not creating a child, they are sculpting a masterpiece
of their own. How exactly are scientists making this happen? Through a new technology called
CRISPR-Cas9, a high precision tool that alters the RNA in a human being to change the genome
of the baby. This machine establishes a new way to correctly fix a faulty gene even down to one
letter in the DNA ladder. Through the creation of these perfect beings by the CRISPR-Cas9,
scientists have greatly prompted against moral and ethical justifications in society.
The right to personal autonomy, the ability for oneself to decide and pursue a course of
action in one's life, has been recognized in law as a basic right of every human being and often is

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regardless of any particular moral content. That being said, when a child becomes genetically
engineered, they are stripped of their perceived genetic makeup in advance before they are even
a fully developed fetus, which denies that child rights for an open future. Scientists have become
blind to the negative aspect of CRISPR-Cas9 by refusing to notice that the manufacturing of
these babies can create children to be treated as objects instead of real people. When in reality,
children should get the chance to be who they want to be without having to carry the burden of
their parents' genetically mediated expectations, (Babies by Design). When the outcome causes
a child to change the way they think of themselves, this generates ethical assumptions of whether
a child created from a petri dish using donor gametes will have a sense of worth or moral
standing if they knew that they werent, in fact, the person that they were suppose to be before
they were modified by their parents.
Some people may argue that Gene Therapy is just a less improved version of Genetic
Engineering and that it was were the idea of Genetic Modification came from. In fact, scientists
say that since we have been conducting Gene Therapy on people for years, we should have the
right to genetically modify children for the people who can pay for it. The difference between the
two, that most people dont realize, is that Gene Therapy is not used through random decision. In
fact, it is used, in order to treat diseases in a single patient, rather than in all their descendants,
(Human Genetics Alert - The Threat of Human Genetic Engineering), because genes are used to
treat and prevent conic diseases that will cause the fetus to suffer when born. It doesnt have the
ability to enhance a persons or families genome like the CRISPR-Cas9 does. As a fact, Gene
Therapy isnt even hereditary. Meaning, if a person were to get Gene Therapy conducted on their
fetus to stop it from getting a certain disease, that fetus can still later produce offsprings with
that disease that its parents directed Gene Therapy on. Though what makes the idea so objective

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is that, the genetic changes created by germ-line engineering would be passed on,
(Engineering the Perfect Baby), to the next generation. With that being said the two mechanisms
cannot be compared, because even though they do both change the genetics of a person, their
strategies are polar opposite.
The Evolution of Humans has spanned about 2 million years and has resulted in the
types of people we see today: people who have imperfections and people who are very different
from one another, (Orion Magazine). Evolution has played a huge rule is the creation of man
kind. Us humans have evolved from adaptation. When the environment changes, the individuals
of that environment that are best suited are the ones that survive and reproduce. Without diversity
adaptation becomes harder to succeed. By creating perfect human beings, we are creating a
similar specie of people and decreasing diversity. The human species then loses it ability to
adapt, and as time exceeds there will be less and less humans best fit for their environments. So
in the end, Genetic Modification could be the reason of human extermination if taken too lightly.
Generating a perfect human being doesnt sound so perfect anymore after the realization
of the devastating outcomes that even the advancements wouldnt be able to balance. The ethical
and moral standards in society can only reach appoint until they are completely gone, and when
it comes to the Genetic Modification through CRISPA-Cas9, society will take a heave hit if it
isnt limited by the people. Even if it does promise to demolish chances of getting a heredity
disease, is it really worth all the predicaments that could develop throughout society. Humans
need to decide when the advancement of technology crosses a line and whether or not the idea of
a perfect human should stick to being an idea or to become a reality.

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